


Memories in Orange Shadow

by the_rck



Category: The Librarians (TV 2014)
Genre: Gen, Growing Up, Memories, Trust, people change
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2020-11-27 06:34:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20943920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_rck/pseuds/the_rck
Summary: Jenkins was the only one who knew that Ezekiel remembered. He had to tell someone, and he thought Jenkins would understand all of the hard parts. Ezekiel really needed someone to understand, and even better, Jenkins could warn him because Jenkins knew the road.Not the do-over parts, of course, but Jenkins had watched and accepted the fragility of other people. Jenkins had protected and failed and gotten up to do it again. Jenkins knew the despair of not being enough. He knew those things differently than Ezekiel did, but that was more than anybody else could offer.





	Memories in Orange Shadow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tuesday](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tuesday/gifts).

Jenkins was the only one who knew that Ezekiel remembered. He had to tell someone, and he thought Jenkins would understand all of the hard parts. Ezekiel really needed someone to understand, and even better, Jenkins could warn him because Jenkins knew the road.

Not the do-over parts, of course, but Jenkins had watched and accepted the fragility of other people. Jenkins had protected and failed and gotten up to do it again. Jenkins knew the despair of not being enough. He knew those things differently than Ezekiel did, but that was more than anybody else could offer.

He knew about feeling too old for his body, and he knew— this was the part Ezekiel needed to learn— how to let people he’d protected face new risks without instinctively interposing himself to pay whatever the cost might turn out to be.

Jenkins heard Ezekiel out. Jenkins gave Ezekiel chamomile tea. “Consider retiring,” he said. The words held no bite, no condescension.

Ezekiel shook his head.

Jenkins raised one finger. “I said to consider it not that you must do it or even that I recommend it. Next time eternity catches you, you may not escape. It gets harder each time, and she’ll always reach for you first.” He cleared his throat. “Unless you’re standing next to me.”

Ezekiel wanted to make it a joke because jokes passed. “I need to see all the sequels.” He needed to stay and to see that his friends were okay. So very often, they hadn't been.

Jenkins studied him for several seconds. “You got to try all of their choices for a very long time, but in the real world, they get to decide. Always.” He sighed. “Mostly. You love them; you don’t own them. You wouldn’t have come to me if you didn’t know both parts of that already.”

Ezekiel found his own hands suddenly fascinating. “Am I still a Librarian?”

“What does the Library tell you?”

Ezekiel didn’t want to answer, so he waited.

“You can be,” Jenkins said at last. “Just not the one you were. It won’t be for the same reasons, but the new ones can be just as real. The Library pulls in people who can serve. Most Librarians, most Guardians, most... others, don’t get to the point of understanding the weight of their own will in choosing the Library." He hesitated then added, "The Library is not the world's only necessity.”

Ezekiel wanted to hear more about the other routes, and he wondered which gave the best endings, but he still didn’t know how being a Librarian would end.

“Take some time,” Jenkins said. “Time away. Do some new things. Entirely new. Build a log cabin. Meditate. Learn the hula.” He flapped a hand at Ezekiel. “Go and be bad at something. Figure out who you want to be now that you’re past the choke point. Just not with them around, not yet. They’re going to trigger you and not understand why or how. They’re going to push you back into the old box because they weren’t there while you outgrew it.”

His friends had always expected the familiar Ezekiel. It had been faster simpler to give them that because all of the beats were predictable and because none of them liked the idea that they’d lost parts of themselves which he remembered.

Time apart, off and on, would give them all space for the ways Ezekiel had changed. The terror he felt about what would happen to them while he wasn’t paying attention actually meant that he needed the separation entirely so that he didn’t try to lock them all in a vault that only he could open.

That wasn’t love or protection. That was Ezekiel being a danger to the people around him.

“Will you lie for me?” Ezekiel thought that Jenkins’ response might be the difference between being able to come back later and having to walk away. “Tell them all I’m doing solo missions, specialized ones?”

Jenkins smiled. “Some people forget I can do that. Colonel Baird doesn’t usually, but she won’t think I’d lie about this.”


End file.
